Every home should have a daughter,
For there's nothing like a girl
To keep the world around her
In one continuous whirl.

From the moment she arrives on earth,
And on through womanhood,
A daughter is a "female"
Who is seldom understood.

One minute she is laughing,
The next she starts to cry,
Man just can't understand her
And there's just no use to try.

She is soft and sweet and cuddly,
But she's also wise and smart;
She's a wondrous combination
Of a mind and brain and heart.

And even in her baby days,
She's just a born coquette;
And anything she really wants,
She manages to get.

For even at a tender age,
She uses all her wiles;
And she can melt the hardest heart
With the sunshine of her smiles.

She starts out as a rosebud
With her beauty unrevealed;
Then through a happy childhood,
Her petals are unsealed.

She's soon a sweet girl graduate,
And then a blushing bride;
And then a lovely woman
As the rosebud opens wide.

And some day in the future,
If it be God's gracious will,
She, too, will be a Mother
And know that reverent thrill,
That comes to every Mother
Whose heart is filled with love
When she beholds her "angel"
That God sent her from above.

And there would be no life at all
In this world or the other
Without a "darling daughter"
Who, in turn, becomes a "Mother!"

~ Helen Steiner Rice ~